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Where is Kyra?

“Someone is gone, and someone is alone, and there’s nothing else.”

Right director, wrong script.

Where is Kyra? develops like a sinister plot through a brooding orchestra of slow-playing scenery and moody color panels, only to arrive at a banal vigilante criminal heist where a woman cashes her dead mother’s pension checks because she screwed up on the form and can’t afford 40 bucks in mailing fees. Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle) gets it right: “the movie’s stylistic idea gets in the way of its story, and the story is too slim to sustain a full-length feature.”

The incidental romance between Michelle Pfeiffer and team player, Kiefer Sutherland, only renders the underlying circus act an accomplice to the dreary existence of hopelessly idle human beings. Whatever attempt was made to deliver a message, Christopher Kompanek (Washington Post) is right: “Picoult’s screenplay is frustratingly slight, never evolving beyond . . . one note.” Worthless and for shame, since Dosunmu sets the right mood only to prematurely revert to reliance on the appeal of amateur level con-work “involving a wig, a disguise and a fake ID” that makes Mrs. Doubtfire feel like Inside Man.

To quote Mike McGranaghan (The Aisle Seat): “To say [the plot] grows tedious would be an understatement.” Call me when Dosunmu and cinematographer, Bradford Young (Arrival, A Most Violent Year, Selma), get a hold of a serious script. That could really be something.